The present invention relates to a translation server system.
With a spread of the Internet technology typified by World Wide Web (hereinafter abbreviated to WWW) and E-mails over the recent years, a variety of information can be obtained without being aware of the borders. Further, there has been proposed a technology of reducing barriers of languages when exchanging the information by combining the Internet with an auto translation program.
What is proposed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open Publication No. 9-81549 is a system for readily translating the information obtained in a foreign language owing to a combination of the auto translation program with a client system for accessing WWW.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open Publication No. 10-149359 proposes a system for combining mail services with an auto translation system, and setting a language into which the E-mail is translated corresponding to addresses of a mail sender and receiver. According to this system, when receiving the E-mail, the mail text is automatically translated based on the address of the sender.
In the system as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open Publication No. 9-81549, however, the information obtained from WWW is translated in the client terminal. This process has a high load upon the CPU and requires some length of time for the translation. Hence, it is required in this system that the client terminal be provided with a high-performance computer. As a lot of client terminals are needed, it is difficult to actually introduce this type of system.
Moreover, a handheld terminal as a client terminal is now spreading. It is not, however, realistic to utilize the auto translation system in the handheld terminal exhibiting a low throughput.
In addition, if translated by the client terminal, when a plurality of persons access the same information, each person needs to execute the translation, with the result that repetitive futile processes are executed in the system as a whole.
On the other hand, the system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open Publication No. 10-149359 aims at automatically translating the mail text on the basis of the addresses of the mail sender and receiver. Nowadays, however, a domain name, which may be defined as a mail address, is not necessarily classified according to the country. Hence, it is difficult to operate this system without any contradiction in the Internet environment of nowadays, wherein the number of communication terminals more and more increases.